Breakdown of Left ‘Embarrassing to Watch’

Likud MK ‘embarrassed’ by breakdown, Labor newcomer unconcerned.

By Maayana Miskin

First Publish: 12/7/2012, 11:44 AM

MKs Livni (Kadima) and Peretz (Labor), 25.1.11

Flash 90

On Thursday Labor party MK Amir Peretz caused an uproar in the political world when he left his party at the last minute to join Tzipi Livni’s new party, The Movement. Peretz had been in the third place on the Labor party list.

Labor newcomer Stav Shapir, who made a name for herself in the “tent protests” of 2011, said she is not concerned by Peretz’s move.

“The Labor party has a clear set of beliefs,” she told Arutz Sheva. The party’s platform remains what it was when Israel first became a state, she said. “We’ll stay on the path we’re on. Whoever joins us, joins us, whoever leaves – good luck to them.”

Peretz's decision to leave meant Shapir was bumped up from the ninth slot on the party list to the eighth.

MK Carmel Shama-Hacohen of Likud saw things differently. The political games on the political left do not affect Likud, he said, “but the truth is, it’s embarrassing to watch.”

“I thought there would be a unified bloc, so that there would be a clear choice – left or right,” he added. However, he said, ultimately the lack of a clear, single alternative to Likud Beytenu “is the left’s problem.”